


Fate knows best

by E_J



Category: No Fandom, Original Work
Genre: Alternate Universe - Soulmates, F/M, Implied/Referenced Homophobia, M/M, Trans Character
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-27
Updated: 2021-02-27
Packaged: 2021-03-18 23:49:16
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,149
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29741772
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/E_J/pseuds/E_J
Summary: In a world were you see your soulmate's name on your dreams, two kids are believe to be meant to be together. But Jack knows Amanda is not the name painted on his dreams. After coming clean, Jack is kicked out and leaves town. Years later he meets his new neighbour and Jack's sure he's the one. What happens when they get to know each other and they have a lot more in common than they spected?
Kudos: 3





	Fate knows best

**Author's Note:**

> Fist of all I am not trans, so while I tried to be as respectfull as I could I'm aware I may made something wrong. If something in this story offends you as a trans person or you find something offensive to trans people, please let me know so I can make it right. If you are offended by trans or homosexual people, you are certaintly reading the wrong story. I will not tolerate any transphobia or homophobia. Any disrespectfull comment will be deleted.
> 
> As always English is not my first language and and this story hasn't been beta read. All mistakes are mine.  
> Every comment and suggestion is appreciated and encouraged.

Fate knows best

Jack knew Amanda since they were born. Their families were friends, and having been born just a few weeks apart they were always together. It was almost impossible for them not to be friends. As they grew older and their friendship grew with them, everyone thought they were soulmates. Actually, everything pointed towards it, the only problem was that Amanda was not the name written on Jack’s dreams. Not Amanda, or Mandy, or Amy, or any other variable of her name. It didn’t matter how hard Jack tried, his friend’s name wasn’t in his dreams. 

  
  


However, the adults didn’t seem to care. They were so focused on the idea of the two of them being soulmates that they wouldn’t listen to Jack’s concerns. The fact that Jack’s name was on Amanda’s dreams pretty much made the adults think they were right. 

  
  


Jack didn’t understand, soulmates were supposed to be precious, something to cherish and take care of; but the adults in his life didn’t care that Amanda wasn’t his soulmate. It seemed that the plans and ideas the adults had were more important than his own happiness. 

  
  


But that didn’t stop them. They were best friends, always together no matter what, and whatever pressure that was put on them didn’t affect their relationship. They were Jack and Amanda, and that was all they cared about. 

  
  


However, that blissful innocence and unbreakable faith in their relationship was not meant to last. As years went by, the expectations of the adults became too much, sneaking on their minds and tuning innocent gestures in so much more. 

  
  


As soon as they became teenagers everything changed. The sleepovers they had done every week since they were 4, suddenly became unacceptable. Every hug or kiss on the cheek was considered sexual. Everything about their relationship changed without their consent. And it didn’t stop there, every time either of them made a comment about liking or being interested in someone that wasn’t each other, the adults would look at them with disapproval and a comment on how disrespectful was to talk about someone else in front of their soulmate. 

Slowly, they started to drift apart. The friends they have made on their own became their main group, avoiding each other in an attempt to stop the adult’s expectations. It didn’t do much good; as soon as their parents noticed how they weren’t spending time together anymore, they took upon themselves to reunite them, organizing parties and family meals and forcing them to sit together while they commented on how cute they were. 

Things got more and more tense as years went by, and Jack’s concerns only grew when he realised he wasn’t interested in women. At 16 Jack knew he was gay, making it impossible for Amanda to be his soulmate. He was uncertain of coming out, neither of their families were specially open minded, but he thought it would make them realise they were not meant to be together. He was absolutely wrong. 

Soon after Jack's 17th birthday, the situation became unbearable, Amanda had just gotten a boyfriend and their families were making both their lifes hell. They thought it was disrespectful of Amanda to be with another boy aside from Jack, and they thought Jack should be angry at Amanda and fighting to win her back. It was after a heated argument during the newly imposed “game night” that Jack broke up and yelled out he was gay. 

The silence that fell over the room haunted Jack for years. The surprised look on Amanda’s face. The sad expression on his brother who knew that was not going to go well for him. The distraught faces of Amanda’s parents. The disgust on his mother’s. The anger on his father’s. After a few seconds of tense silence, the yelling started. It continued for hours even after Amanda and her family left. When it ended, Jack had his belongings in bags on the street, and his home’s door closing behind him. 

He packed up, went living with a friend until school finished in a few weeks and promised himself to never hide who he was again. After graduating he left town, cutting contact with everyone and decided to make his own path without the expectations of anyone. 

It’s been years since Jack left his childhood town. All the memories, good and bad, safely kept on a dark corner of his mind. He never tells anyone about those years, about why he doesn’t have any friends from before college or why he doesn’t speak with his family. When someone asks, he smiles softly and changes the subject, making clear that’s not a conversation he’s willing to have. Not even the partners he’s had over the years knew the full story. They weren’t his soulmates, why would they need to know who he really was. 

However, when he’s alone at night, looking at the lights of the sleeping city, he thinks of Amanda. They were more than best friends once, she was trapped in the situation just as much as he was. It wasn’t her fault, and yet he left her to deal with the fall out. He regrets drifting apart, letting their parents stain the relationship they had. But mostly he regrets not taking her with him when he ran away. He regrets abandoning her in a situation in which they both were victims of other people’s plans. He thinks of what it’s been of her. Where she is, what is she doing. Is she happy. But he doesn’t dare to reach out, afraid of discovering she couldn’t escape. 

Funnily enough, the world always has its own plan. 

********

It’s been exactly 10 years, 4 months, and 2 days since Jack left his hometown. He’s recently reconnected with his brother, Jack’s not proud of cutting him out but he couldn’t have anything tying him to his past. He’s happy to find out he’s an uncle, that his nephew knows of him despite everything that happened. They don’t talk about their parents, and while Jack doesn’t ask about Amanda, his brother tells him she left a couple years after him, and she never went back. Jack’s sad to hear that no-one knows where she is, but he’s glad she’s not longer in that insane situation. He’s gratefull to hear that his brother doesn’t resent him for leaving,and that he doesn’t mind him being gay. He even asks him if he’s found the man he wants to spend the rest of his life with. 

The reunion with his brother is not the only surprise prepared for the 10th anniversary of his leaving. Despite all the things people like to think about karma and fate, the universe does like to see people happy, and it makes everything in its power to make it happen. If it does it with a bit of a dramatic flair, who can blame it. 

It’s on what would be Amanda’s birthday that Jack sees him for the first time. The lift is broken, again, and he is begrudgingly waking up the stairs to his flat when he gets a flash of the guy moving in the flat right below him. 

The world stops. 

Jack always thought people went over dramatic when they described how they knew they’d met their soulmate. But now he understands. It feels like the world has gone quiet, and the light faded a bit, all so that  _ that _ person becomes the center of all the attention. All your senses are drawn to them. Your whole body screaming to approach them. It is impossible to miss. 

And as soon as it started, it stopped. The new neighbour closed his door, and Jack stood there, looking where he had been trying to remember how to breath again. He wanted to knock on the door, introduce himself hoping the new guy felt the same thing as he did. But he couldn’t. For some reason, he couldn’t. So he walked the last flight of stairs to his floor. 

For the following weeks Jack did everything he could to avoid the new tenant. It was beyond ridiculous but he was scared. He wasn’t sure exactly what was he scared about, but he knew he was. But that didn’t stop to try and steal glances at him whenever he could. He went as far as looking at his mailbox to read the name. Unfortunately for him, the old lady that was renting the flat hadn’t changed the plaque. 

Jack’s dilemma whether to approach his neighbour or not was solved for him a month after. Autumn had come roaring, bringing intense rains that soaked you down to your soul. It was like that, dripping wet, that he finally met the new guy. He’d run into the lift, in the very last second before the door closed, splashing water all around him. He smiled, made a weirdly joyful comment about the rain, and intruded himself. 

Sam.

His name was Sam. 

The same name that had been written on Jack’s dreams as long as he could remember. The same name he had never shared with anyone before. The name he kept hidden deep within him, reminding him that he could be happy. 

After that, they started to meet more frequently. It’s amazing how many times you meet your neighbours when you are not avoiding them. Little by little, those brief chats became actual conversations, and before Jack knew, they were hanging out as friends. 

However, they never shared anything about their past. It was the norm for Jack, but he could see things hadn’t been easy for Sam either. So they didn’t ask. 

It was close to Christmast when the soulmate topic came up. The holidays always make everyone talk about it, people either desperate to find their other half or bragging about how much better the celebrations were when you had your soulmate beside you. It was then when Sam told him that he thought he had already met his, but he didn’t realise until it was too late. He told him about that boy he used to be friends with, how the world seemed to be brighter when they were together, and how it wasn’t until he left that he realised why it was brighter. It wasn’t until he told him that since they met the brightness had seemed to come back that Jack couldn’t hold it anymore. 

He told Sam everything, how he felt when he first saw him in the hallway, how the world stopped just to shine on him. How he was afraid because all his childhood had been told about who was supposed to be his soulmate. And then he told him about his town, and his family. About Amanda. When he finished Jack was panting, tears pooling in his eyes for all the feelings he had pushed down since he left. 

Sam, on the other side, had the most shocked expression he’s ever seen. Slowly, that shock turned into a soft smile that crashed with the tears that were forming on his eyes. Jack didn’t understand. Why was he smiling? Why were tears in his eyes if he was smiling? And then, Sam spoke.

“It’s me J. I’m Amanda”

No-one has called him J since he left town. No-one has ever called him J aside Amanda. How did he know that?

Sam, sensing his doubts explained. While Jack fought with the knowledge that Amanda was not his soulmate, Sam had fought with the feeling of being something he wasn’t. He felt wrong being called a girl. Amanda felt like an insult. It wasn’t until he started college and was presented with a world bigger and wider than his little town that he realised the reason all that felt wrong was because it was wrong. He was not a girl. He was not Amanda. He was Sam. 

They spent the night talking, catching up on everything that had happened over the last 10 years. And when the morning came, it found them cuddling together, dreaming each other’s name and the life that was lying ahead of them. 

A life together. As soulmates. 

Because it turned out their families were somewhat right. They had always been soulmates, only that it had not been as Jack and Amanda. Because they had made a mistake with him. They had thought they were meant to be together because they were a boy and a girl. They didn’t realise that they were two boys. It wasn’t Jack who was wrong for being gay, it was the adults insisting Sam was a girl. 

But the universe knew. All along it knew Jack was gay and Sam was a boy. It knew they were soulmates. It just made the mistake of labeling Sam the wrong gender. But it’s okay, soulmates always find each other no matter the setbacks and the labels. Because, no matter what, Fate knows best. 


End file.
